Hello

I do not make many posts, and I am sorry but I wanted to ask a question.

My brickyard hood has a small blemish on it. I am wondering about replacing it with another Brickyard hood. Has anyone replaced an OE brickyard panel with another OE brickyard panel? I know color matching with a respray is guaranteed to fail.

If it doesn't work I will just get the car repainted. However If it's salvageable I may look into replacing just the hood first.

 

What is the blemish like ?

 

It is like a weird looking paint bump/corrosion/rust mark right near one of the headlights that I would say is Rust bubbling under the paint, except the hood is Aluminium.

 

Depending on whether the hood you buy had similar care to yours, the paint could be slightly darker of lighter. How big is this blemish?

 

It is about 5mm by 8mm.

It doesn'nt matter how big it is. it's driving me nuts. I put the car up for sale over it but I couldn't handle the idea of selling the car i've wanted for the last ten years so I have decided to get rid of the blemish and fix the car up finally with maybe some wheels and tasteful things here and there.

 

If you’re a fanatic about perfect matching paint, you could have the hood refinished with a technique my Dad sometimes used. He would do the necessary body repairs and spray primer over the repaired metal, but leave as much of the original undamaged paint around the perimeter of the panel as possible. The urethane clear coat is the thickest element in your car’s paint finish, much, much thicker than the color coat that is underneath. Dad would carefully wet sand the clear coat (on the original paint of the parameter) almost all the way down to the color coat. He would then mix his paint and spray over the primered repair carefully feathering it into the area of original paint. After this he would spray a clear coat evenly over the whole panel.

On a car with the curves of a Z, your eye is drawn to the area a few inches either side of the panel gap line. Being as this area of the repaired panel is original paint, your eye will be satisfied. You will not notice if the paint slowly blends towards the new paint, which may be a half tone off. Brickyard is a unique color, but being a darker hue is easier to match than some of the lighter colors. I don’t understand your attitude that “color matching with a respray is guaranteed to fail”. If the paintwork on your car is in good unmolested condition, a skilled painter can paint the hood to match, or if necessary do some color blending (such as above) satisfy even the most demanding person.

 

Have you had a body shop look at your blemish? I suspect a good body shop could repair the problem spot without too much difficulty.

 

I've decided on doing a full repaint. I can address the paint chips on the front bumper as well this way!

 

I did the same last fall on my '08 K51. The shop made an absolute perfect match, but I was nervous about it until I saw the final result. Glad I took the chance, as it really made the car look showroom-new again. I used to do a lot of highway commuting, which badly sandblasted the bumper and hood, but now just drive a short distance to work, so it should stay looking new for a long time.

 

You considered selling your car because of a blemish? You are a doing a full repaint for a blemish? Wow. You are some kind of special.